


voicemails

by sickgirl_mp3



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 16:40:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13275573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sickgirl_mp3/pseuds/sickgirl_mp3
Summary: a voicemail system is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products and services, using an ordinary telephone.





	voicemails

Despite the cracklings and static trying to shroud the sound of her voice, he somehow hears her voice clear as day. The same voice that had and still has him convinced that she sings every word that floats off of her tongue.

 

“Do you even need me?” he listens to her ask, her voice like velvet that's getting soaked in the rain, a terrible and tragic version of herself, “Are you happy?”

 

_ Click.  _

 

The phone rings and Jordan doesn't even have to look at the caller i.d. to know it's Beyoncé. He doesn't answer, instead opting to lay back on the lumpy, uncomfortable mattress and the dull, grey ceiling above him. When it finishes ringing, he waits five minutes for a message and checks again. She must be starting a routine, because her name’s there on the screen again. He listens.

 

“Jordan, at least tell me who the bitch is at some point,” Beyoncé spitefully spits, and it makes Jordan question whether the cracks he hears are from the lightning outside his window or in the quiet maliciousness in Beyoncé's tone. “‘Cause you must be awful busy if you aren't picking up the damn phone.”

 

_ Click. _

 

Jordan listens for a ring and he surprisingly doesn't hear one. He gets up to take his shirt and his shoes off and order something to eat, and he thinks about how he should have Beyoncé next to him, asking him to order the shrimp she always like to eat when she's at this hotel. He's in the middle of asking about the cost of the food when the phone rings and makes him stop in the middle of his sentence. He tosses the flimsy menu to the side and picks the phone up. 

 

“Hello?” he answers, short but relieved that he’ll be hearing his wife speak to him again, regardless of maliciousness.

 

“Your girlfriend sounds like a man.”

 

“Not even a “hello?” Just a dumb statement that comes from a heap of baseless bullshit-”

 

Beyoncé hangs up. Jordan finds himself pointing every finger possible at the mirror. He’s dying. Beyoncé calls back a few seconds later.

 

“I don’t like it when you say that word and mention or address me in the same sentence,” she says.

 

The line goes deathly silent for a few seconds before Beyoncé is back, huffing into the receiver  the same way she does at him when she’s not getting things she wants.

 

“Then don’t say dumb shit.”

 

“IT’S NOT FUCKING DUMB,” Beyoncé frustratedly yells down the phone, “IT’S A LEGITIMATE CONCERN TO HAVE. YOU AREN’T HELPING YOURSELF EITHER.”

 

The line goes fully silent for a whole minute. Jordan almost hangs up, but Beyoncé is back to huffing down the line like she never left. Jordan lets his head knock against the cheap headboard behind him. There’s a lot of things in life Jordan understands, and these things make him proud, because the common person lets life kick them in the ass a little before they learn, but Jordan’s learning curve was a smooth one to ride on. Mistakes were made, sure, but nothing major. No rock bottoms, no estrangement, no cries for help. He can understand death, taxes, accounting, owning a company, buying a house, saving money, talking professionally with people you hate, putting your best foot forward even when you feel like shit, making the wrong choices so that they can turn into the right ones in the long run. He gets it all, he gets sex, money, why people are the way they are- not really the last one. He thought he did, he thought he could read people like books, thought he could breeze through them like he breezed through standardized tests and college exams and DIY auto repair books. Beyoncé came along and shattered the expectations he had for her, he pegged her to be a carbon copy of all the other women he’s ever met, made him do things he couldn’t have dreamed of doing if he were younger and on a healthier direction in life.

 

“I hope you got yourself a smart girl,” Beyoncé says. She takes a deep breath, a shaky one, too, “Since I’m clearly so dumb, you guys’ll have a lot to laugh about. Maybe you guys already are.”

 

Dead silence.

 

“Beyoncé, I’m alone right now,” Jordan says quietly. 

 

His head is starting to hurt. He can feel tension forming in his shoulders.

 

“Everyone says that.”

 

“I am. I promise.”

 

“Explain why I saw you on TV,” Beyoncé says, accidentally hiccuping down the line so sadly that it’s almost pathetic, “Explain to me why you were on tv, sitting courtside with a woman I’ve never seen before. Explain to me why I had to hear her name before I remembered that you guys just ‘went your separate ways’ and you didn’t bother to further talk about it like you couldn’t trust me.”

 

Jordan has no explanation.

 

“Is this what you always do while you’re away from home?” Beyoncé asks, fear and pure, unadulterated spite poisoning every syllable, worsening as she goes on, “You leave me to sit pretty at home and then get someone to replace me for the night, or for the week, maybe. But you know what? You’re a wild card, baby, so let me rephrase that: You get someone to replace me for the night and get a new bitch, easier than me, hotter than me, for  _ every  _ night of the week. You’re so predictable.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You really have her on a leash, don’t you?” Jordan’s father mutters as he observes Beyoncé sitting at her desk across the way from Jordan’s office.

 

Jordan’s passive; it could be as tragic as the day she met his father. To give his father some credit, he’s gotten better about Beyoncé- either that or he just doesn’t give his opinion on her anymore if it’s negative. So he practically automates all of his responses. No, Dad, she has me on one. Yeah, she’s a lot, I guess. I wouldn’t say that. I’m not gonna tell our business like that. She’s a nice girl. I know Mom is having a rough time getting along with her.

 

It escalates like it always does; Jordan’s father takes it a step too far.

 

“When she’s done whoring around for you, send her my way,” he says with a laugh. 

 

Jordan rolls his eyes.

 

“That’s not how it is.”

 

“That’s how those kinda girls are,  _ and  _ she’s influenced by  _ you  _ on top of it? Fast and loose as all hell, I know she’s gotta be.”

 

“‘ _ That kind of girl _ ’ is my wife. She’s a grown woman who’s respectable and definitely makes her own choices regardless of me and definitely makes a whole lot of choices for me and our life because she’s intelligent enough to do so.”

 

“Son, that doesn’t have shit to do with me. How long do you think you’ll give it?” Jordan’s father asks, still looking at Beyoncé through the blinds.

 

“That’s fucking idiotic. I don’t even think about that.”

 

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

 

“Then don’t disrespect me and my fucking wife,” Jordan spits.

 

Jordan’s father stills, closing the blinds before turning around and putting his hands on Jordan’s desk, leaning forward to look him in the eye.

 

Jordan does the easiest thing possible: he lies.

 

“I have a meeting to get to, I don’t wanna be late,” Jordan says, standing up and walking past his father quickly.

 

He’s always tried being two steps ahead of him, but somehow it’s never enough. Jordan’s always residing in his shadow. He’s always being grimly reminded of what he could be as he nears his own bitter end. He’s being pulled back by his jacket and his father has his arm around his neck.

 

“J, I don’t know what that bitch has you believing, but you didn’t get here by yourself. Whether you like it or not, I put you here. I didn’t bring you into this world, your mother did, but she can tell you just like I am right now that I’ll take you the fuck out.”

 

Jordan struggles to get out of his grip, hot tears threatening to spill from his eyes.He hears how his father says his name and it takes him back to two places at once; he goes to being seventeen, graduating from high school early, getting into his first choice, his dad ripping the letter because he’d gone around his father and not applied to Harvard as he was asked to. He hears the paper tear clear as day, feels the bruise on his face the same. He also feels the sun on his skin, but Beyoncé warming his legs as she lays on them. He hears her saying his name like it’s a song, asking him if he wants to look and see about bird watching opportunities in the afternoon. It’s the best day of his life because it’s all about her. The both of them, maybe, but mainly her.

 

Amidst all of Jordan’s struggling, he manages to get out of his father’s grasp, stumbling into the filing cabinet next to him and hitting his cheek on it hard enough to leave a bruise.

 

“That hurt me more than it hurt you,” his father says so nonchalantly that it’s sickening. He walks out, strolling to Beyoncé’s desk and talking to her.

 

Her gaze is directed toward her lap as he speaks, a fake, meek smile being painted on her face every few seconds. After a few minutes he leaves and Jordan reluctantly leaves his office, scratching at the spot in his face where a bruise is forming so he can hide it. He’s not even grimacing at the pain, and he’s proud of himself for that.

 

“What’d he say?” he mouths as he nods for Beyoncé to follow him to his car. It’s her lunch break, nobody can fuck around and ask what they’re doing.

 

Beyoncé saves her tears and the full conversation between her and his father for the car, and for that, he’s proud of her. Her vulnerability shows that, no matter how strong she is, she’s still sane. He lets her cry on his shoulder.

 

“What happened to your face?” she asks a while later.

 

“Accident.”

 

* * *

 

Jordan hates lying.

  
  


“You don’t have anything to say?”

 

He does. And he hates lying. So he figures that now’s a better time than ever to not do it.

 

“I do.”

 

“I don’t wanna hear it,” Beyoncé spits.

 

“Wait. Please don’t hang up. I embarrassed both of us by doing that at the game. I never talked about her with you because I felt… stupid. As fuck. The day we “broke up” was… fucked up. I proposed to her after dating her since junior year of college up to after we graduated and she dropped her ring in my drink and told me that she’d been fucking one of our professors the past 6 months. So yes, I didn’t tell you, instead I saw her in town yesterday and invited her to the game and tried to be her best friend. Maybe I was too friendly, I guess-”

 

“Too friendly. You guess.”

 

He can’t lie.

 

“I  _ was  _ too friendly. I was trying to be her best friend so I could get some closure. I’m sorry,” he says, resigned.

 

“You’re sorry,” Beyoncé deadpans.

 

“How can I fix it?” Jordan almost feels shitty for fixing his mouth to ask any questions at a time like this.

 

“Stop letting everyone you fucking know play you, J. I can’t fight all your fuckin battles for you, baby. I can fight, but not like that, not all the time. She guilted you into being her friend, all in everyone’s faces, so that she could make you look like a fool again and take advantage of you. I can’t take everyone on for you. I want you to stop proving yourself to people who don’t fucking matter. That’s all you were doing and I didn’t trust you enough but that’s all you were doing, and,” Beyoncé’s croken voice evolves into a choked-up cry, “I’mma beat that hoe’s bitch ass when I see her because this is all her bitch ass fault.”

 

Jordan can’t help but to smile a little; Beyoncé’s true self always shines somehow, especially when she tries to keep it down. What he did was wrong, hurtful. He has to let Beyoncé decide where they go next; he’s fine with that. He understands.

 

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”


End file.
